BACKGROUND:In 2010 there were an estimated 22.6 million Americans over the age of 12 that were current or former illicit drug users within the last month. Another shocking fact, over six million children in America live with at least one parent who has a drug addiction. Addiction is a progressive problem in the United States. Since 1980, the number of deaths related to drug overdoses has risen over 540 percent. (Source: http://www.michaelshouse.com)

WHY DO PEOPLE TAKE DRUGS:

To feel good                         Most abused drugs produce intense feelings of pleasure. This initial sensation of euphoria is followed by other effects, which differ with the type of drug used. For example, with stimulants such as cocaine, the "high" is followed by feelings of power, self-confidence, and increased energy.

To feel better                       Some people who suffer from social anxiety, stress-related disorders, and depression begin abusing drugs in an attempt to lessen feelings of distress.

To do better                        The increasing pressure that some individuals feel to chemically enhance or improve their athletic performance can similarly play a role in initial experimentation and continued drug abuse.

Curiosity                              Adolescents are particularly vulnerable because of the strong influence of peer pressure. (Source: http://www.drugabuse.gov)

TREATMENT:Currently, the best treatment out there for drug addiction is rehab. There are a number of different rehabilitation centers for all different types of drug addictions. For nicotine addiction, a patch could help.

NEW TECHNOLOGY: Chemist Kim Janda, at Scripps Research Institute has developed  a vaccine against a heroin high and has proven its therapeutic potential in animal models. The new study demonstrates how a novel vaccine produces antibodies (a kind of immune molecule) that stop not only heroin but also other psychoactive compounds metabolized from heroin from reaching the brain to produce euphoric effects.

Using an approach termed "immunopharmacotherapy," Janda and his Scripps Research colleagues previously created vaccines that used immune molecules to blunt the effects of other abused drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine, and nicotine. Human clinical trials are under way for the cocaine and nicotine vaccines. The researchers linked a heroin-like hapten (a small molecule that elicits an immune response) to a generic carrier protein called keyhole limpet hemocyanin or KLH, and mixed it with Alum, an adjuvant (vaccine additive), to create a vaccine "cocktail." This mixture slowly degraded in the body, exposing the immune system to different psychoactive metabolites of heroin. (Source: http://www.scripps.edu) Bottom of Form

Kim Janda, PhD, a Chemist at the Scripps Research Institute, talks about a vaccine that could cure addiction.

Why have you been working at giving a vaccine for addiction?

Dr. Janda: What’s been done is trying to make therapeutics that are either agonists or antagonists for drug abuse and that hasn’t worked very well. Over twenty five years ago I decided that we had to try to do something different. That’s where the idea of trying to develop a vaccine came across.

How does that work?

Dr. Janda: What happens is that when the user takes the drug of abuse the immune system recognizes it as being foreign, it alerts our antibodies to attack the drug and basically block it from reaching the pleasure centers in the brain.

You never get the effects of the drug?

Dr. Janda:  There is a leakage over there, but what happens is it basically blunts the overall effect, so it’s like being like a dirty drug. The other thing that can happen with certain drugs of abuse is the immune system creates a vacuum like effect. Just like a vacuum cleaner can pull out particular things, the immune system in this case can remove the drug from the brain area and pull it back out.

Could you treat obesity like this?

Dr. Janda: This is much more controversial. What we’ve been looking at here is a peptide, it’s a gut hormone which is thought to be involved in the metabolic processes feeding behavior and we tried to make a vaccine against that. The controversy is that this is an endogens molecule found in the body so a lot people aren’t so keen on that. In essence an antagonist (drug) that is being administered for treating particular disease state are no different than the antagonistic effect one would see with an antibody blocking a substrate from it’s receptor .

Is addiction in your genes?